For well over a decade, individuals and small businesses have had access to financial software packages, such as the Intuit Corporation's Quicken® software, to electronically store information about financial transactions. For much of that time, software has been available to download financial transaction information from financial institutions. Many financial institutions have made check images available to customers online. The check images can be copied or downloaded onto the computer of the customer. Those downloads, however, typically failed to reveal the payee named on the check, requiring software users to keep separate records—such as carbon copies of the checks—of the check number and payee, and then to manually enter such information into their financial transaction tracking software. Recently, it has been possible to download text information from credit cards and bank accounts into applications like Quicken and Quickbooks.
Also, existing financial software packages inadequately prepare taxpayers for an audit. During an audit, revenue officials often demand copies of cancelled or processed checks. But existing financial software packages lack any means for capturing and storing images of the processed checks and linking the images to a data file containing the key information on the checks. One known method of providing customers with check information has been to copy the information onto a CD-Rom and mail it to the customer. Because of the large size of the daily or monthly transactions, the downloading of statements and check images has not been simple and in many cases has not been practical.
Therefore, there is a long felt, but unmet meet, for improved financial transaction systems that are capable of automatically incorporating check image data, reducing the burdens of manual entry of payee information, or both by supplying the information in usable digital form.
There is also a need for system and software tools for capturing, organizing, and perusing financial transaction information, including the check images. Financial institutions such as banks, credit unions, and saving and loan institutions are currently spending large amounts of money to store or scan and archive images of the billions of cancelled checks, deposit slips, and other financial documents that they process every year. Some of these institutions mail copies of cancelled checks to their customers at great expense. The check images can also be downloaded. To reduce those expenses, others make their customers' account information, including check and deposit slip images, available to their customers online. The account information has also been made available on CD-Roms.
The customers of these financial institutions, however, have no efficient way of making a permanent record and searchable archive of the cancelled check or deposit slip images. Instead, such customers are typically required to open each check image individually, one at a time, and print or locally save the check image. For high-transaction-volume customers, this is an exceedingly time-consuming exercise. Needless to say, there is a substantial need for an efficient method of making a permanent and searchable database of a customer's check and deposit slip images.